


fear no longer the dark

by brosura



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Daemon Hunter Iris, Gen, crossposted from tumblr, the origin story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-11 21:01:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16860232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brosura/pseuds/brosura
Summary: Frustrated by everyone’s reluctance to teach her to fight the daemons, Iris turns to Aranea for help.(Written for FFXV Ladies Week Day 3 - "World of Ruin // Aranea Mentoring Iris")





	fear no longer the dark

**Author's Note:**

> ft. the daemon hunter iris origin story and aranea being everyones cool big sis

“You’re Aranea, right?” is the first thing Aranea hears as soon as she’s finished throwing back a drink.

The Leville in Lestallum has, mercifully, kept its bar open in this world gone to hell. Limited drinks and stingy bartenders, sure. But they know her here from her nights bullying Prompto and his friends into lightening up for a minute and her mornings after where she got her men to help with repairs and renovations to the hotel. So they’re a little looser on the pour for her.

Either way, the first thing that comes to Aranea’s freshly buzzed brain is,  _“Who let this kid into a bar?”_

Because that’s who is facing her when she looks: a girl who’s either a teenager or baby-faced. Maybe both.

“Who’s asking?” Aranea says, perhaps a bit harsher than she intends to. She just hadn’t expected to be entertaining a kid when she came to drink away the darkness for a little bit.

“Oh, right!” the girl chirps with a little nod of her head. “I’m Iris! Iris Amicitia.”

“Amicitia,” Aranea muses, sounding out each syllable as she spins her wrist to slosh the remains of liquor clinging to the glass in a circle. “I know that name. You’re the little sister, right?”

“Yep!” Iris says with another of those nods. “That’s me!”

“Big guy talked about you a lot,” Aranea says with a grin that’s growing genuine. “Seemed very proud.”

“Did he,” is Iris’ response, but it sounds more like a statement layered with frustration than any real question. But the annoyed quirk of her brow disappears quickly as she continues with, “And he told me about you, too!”

Aranea lets out a hard laugh. “I’m sure the things he had to say were much less  _positive.”_

“Actually, they were very positive!” Iris chirps. “He says you’re really strong! And that you helped out Prompto when he was separated from everyone! And that you talked down Noctis-” the girl cuts herself off, wincing at her own words. Aranea gets it. She didn’t know him that well, but she can feel how heavy the prince’s absence is anyway. “That- that you helped him, too! I guess I got the impression that he thought you were really cool!”

“Oh?” Aranea answers around a laugh. “Well, I did save those boys’ asses on more than one occasion. Glad they’re grateful, at least.”

“Yeah, actually,” Iris starts, and for the first time she looks hesitant, nervous. “I was hoping that maybe, you could help me out, too.”

Aranea frowns. She doesn’t like that the kid seems so anxious over whatever this is about, especially since she’d seen her big brother leave Lestallum not too long ago. Crime wasn’t so bad in the city, but people were starting to look on anyone associated with the prince with more disgust than admiration. “What is it? Someone giving you trouble?”

“N-no, it’s not that!” Iris stutters. “It’s actually, I mean.” She sucks in a breath, seemingly to steel herself, and she meets Aranea’s eyes before she continues, “I want you to teach me how to fight the daemons.”

Aranea blinks. That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to ask. Why would the kid be so nervous asking just that? “Sure.”

“Look, I know I’m young or whatever, but the daemons don’t care about that and they almost breached the wall just the other day and-” Iris pauses, blinking at Aranea as she seems to finally understand what she’d heard. “Wait, you will?”

“Yeah,” Aranea shrugs, swirling her glass once more. When this kid leaves, she’ll probably order another round. “Don’t see why not. It’s an important skill to have, times like these. Not sure why you’re coming to me and not your brother, though. He’s been around the block.”

It scarcely has time to leave her mouth before Iris’ entire expression tightens, eyebrows pinching together, mouth forming into a pout. Her arms come up and down with emphasis as she says, “Because Gladio’s a big stupid idiot who thinks if I know how to fight the daemons I’ll go out on my own. Just because  _he’s_ stupid like that doesn’t mean  _I_ am. I just want to learn to protect everyone here!”

“You tell him,” Aranea says with a smirk.

“And Cor,” Iris continues, clearly not finished. “He won’t say it but he’s got the same stupid reasons. And he gets this kicked dog look every time I ask. Just because he was my dad’s friend doesn’t mean he has to- to  _babysit_  me. And Prompto keeps dodging the question. Monica, too. And Ignis, well, I don’t want to give him more to think about.”

And Aranea gets that. She actually gets a lot of what Iris was saying, from both sides.

She understands the fear that her older brother must be feeling and the hesitance of the people around her to give her the tools to live the reckless way they all had to just to survive. Aranea herself didn’t particularly like that cold anxiety in her chest when she heard that Prompto - or any one of the boys, really - was out on his own in the unending night, so she could see what Iris’ ambitions looked like to an older sibling or a guardian.

But just because she was worried about them whenever they left didn’t mean she had no faith in their ability to come back alive.

And it seems like what Iris needs is a little faith.

“Well, I ain’t them,” Aranea says with a grin. “I take it you know where we dock my airship.”

The girl nods.

“Then meet me there. Tomorrow, at sundown.”

“Yes!” Iris says, arms tucked close to her chest as she bounces in what seems to be excitement. Aranea misses being that young. “Yes, I’ll be there!”

“And kid?” the girl pauses her excited bouncing to stand stock-still, almost like she’s at attention. “Show up ready for a fight.”

Iris’ face suddenly grows serious and she nods, jerky and stiff. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, and Iris?” Aranea says with a smirk. “Never call me ‘ma’am’ again.”

* * *

“Take it you’re not a spear girl,” Aranea says, watching the girl awkwardly parry a hit from one of the daemons - a pissed looking hobgoblin - they’d lured from the power plant.

Her men watch on in anxiety, sniper rifles raised, and she knows their fingers are just itching for the trigger.  _Soft-hearted idiots._ But, maybe she’s a soft-hearted idiot, too. She’s proud of the way she’d lead them if even in the definition of dire circumstances they’re hesitant to watch a civilian have to fight.

But what they don’t know is that the kid is most definitely not a civilian.

Still, though, she’s definitely not a spear girl.

Aranea steps in, pushes the daemon back with one swift thrust of the back of her spear and it falters back into the cage they’d been using to secure it it between each little sparring session.

“G-guess not,” Iris grates out, leaning heavily on the borrowed spear she’d been using.

“A shame,” Aranea mumbles, gently taking the spear from her to toss back to her men behind her. “Coulda given you a lot of hand me downs.”

“I can-” Iris frowns. “I can practice if I need to-”

Aranea cuts her off with a shake of her head. “No need to adjust to a spear if you’re used to something else, which, well, I know you Shields and I know you definitely are. So, what types of weapons are you used to?”

“Well,” Iris flusters. “I don’t know if it’s really a weapon.”

“Nonsense,” Aranea says. She gestures back to one of her men on standby. “Gio here? Slingshot.” Aranea ignores the muffled protest behind her. “Long as it keeps you alive, it’s a weapon.”

“Well, then, I guess,” Iris frowns again. “I guess my body is the weapon.”

Aranea raises an eyebrow. “Care to elaborate?”

“I, um, I trained for hand-to-hand, martial arts,” Iris tilts her head. “Fisticuffs?”

“You’re gonna punch the demons?” Aranea laughs, but before the kid’s expression can fall too far from her misinterpreting it as mockery, Aranea adds, encouraging, “That’ll fucking work.”

“It will?”

“Sure,” Aranea grins. “Long as you still equip the right weapons.” She turns to her men. “Nico, you got something?”

“I got something,” the woman responds, then gets up to disappear into the airship.

A moment later and she returns, something glinting in her hands.

“Brass knuckles?” Iris asks, but it’s more laugh than question.

“Holy brass knuckles,” Aranea corrects. “Seems there were hunters out there just as into fisticuffs as you. Now, put ‘em on. Let’s see what you can do.”

And when Iris does, Aranea can already see in the straightness of her back that this is an arrangement she’s confident in, comfortable with.

The daemon roars when they release it from its cage, and it makes a beeline for Aranea out of some singular desire for revenge.

But before it can reach her, Iris strikes.

It’s a swift punch to the ribs of the creature, hard enough that its skin sizzles with the contact and it flinches away from its goal. But before it can act to run away or hit Iris back, she’s suddenly there in front of it, pulling one mottled gray arm over her shoulder and tugging until the creature falls flat on its back before her.

Then just as swiftly as she’d struck the creature before, her leg comes up in an arc to land her heel hard on the creature’s throat. It makes a choked noise, but doesn’t have time to do anything else before Iris’ fist follows the momentum of her foot and lands hard on its skull.

The daemon dissolves quickly into black smoke after the sharp crack of that single hit, and it leaves Iris blinking in surprise where she’d landed, crouched around where the creature’s throat would have been, hand still hovering above its skull.

“Whoa,” Iris breathes.

“Just ‘whoa?’” Aranea laughs. Behind her she hears her men murmuring in awe. Someone lets out a long whistle of wonder. “Holy shit, kid! You weren’t kidding about your body being a weapon.”

“I guess not,” Iris says with a breathy laugh of her own. She looks at her hands, at the brass knuckles that fit comfortably over her own like a second skin. Then the focused thing she’d become during the fight dissolves into that kid at the bar, arms tucked close and bouncing on the balls of her feet in excitement. “Awesome!”

“Awesome is right,” Aranea grins. “Can’t say the rest of the daemons out there will be as easy as this guy, but you know what’ll help out?”

“What?” Iris asks, still bouncing.

Aranea’s grin is wide and sharp as she answers, “Some holy steel-toed boots.”

**Author's Note:**

> gladio: iris what do you have??  
> iris, running past with aranea's practice spear: a SPEAR  
> gladio: NOOOOOOOOOO  
> aranea: oh my god why does she have a spe-
> 
> if you liked the fic, please feel free to drop a comment or hit me up on my [tumblr](http://brosura.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/bigkatsanctuary)!!


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